Chapter 11

[NOTE: This is a typed tape transcript and has not been edited or published, as of August 1992. It is for reference use only. The interviewer's remarks have been omitted where not relevant to Osho's words]

A:* I hate all divisions in humanity -- Swiss, Italian, German, Indian. Mankind is one. The whole earth is one. The people are all lovable, everywhere. There is no need to discriminate. Of course I love people who live in Switzerland, but I will not call them Swiss people.

Q:* THE SWISS PEOPLE THERE ARE FAMOUS BECAUSE OF THE CLEAN COUNTRY AND THEY ARE CALLING THEMSELVES A COMMUNE TOO.

DO YOU THINK THERE IS A SIMILARITY BETWEEN YOUR COMMUNE AND SWITZERLAND, BECAUSE YOU ARE PREPARING YOUR COMMUNE VERY CLEAN TOO?

A:* I know Swiss people are clean... but there is nothing to brag about it. One should be clean. That is nothing, something special. That should be natural.

When somebody is unclean, then he is a special case.

Switzerland is clean, a beautiful country....

Q:* IS IT POSSIBLE THAT YOU GO TO SWITZERLAND AT ANY TIME?

A:* There is every possibility. I keep everything open.

Q:* WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU ARE IN SWITZERLAND?

A:* That will depend what people there do with me! They will be as hostile to me as any other people, because the mind of man is just the same all over the world:

conditioned by the past, anything new creates fear, paranoia. And I am totally new, discontinuous with the past.

I want humanity to burn the whole history of man and just to start from the scratch, because what we have done in the past is not worth remembering.

Sooner we forget it, better.

So it is not a question of Switzerland or Germany or England or India; the mind is conditioned by the past. There may be differences in detail, but one thing is basic that they are all living with ideas which are out of date. And they are all living with fictions, as if they are realities. So when I say the truth, it hurts, it shocks.

Q:* WHAT WOULD YOU DEPROGRAM IN SWITZERLAND?

A:* I will do exactly the same that I am doing here: shocking people, creating as many enemies as possible. Because that is my way of work: once you are my enemy, then friendship is not far away. Rather than starting with friendship and ending up with enmity -- which is what happens -- I have reversed the process. I start with enmity and end up with friendship. Then there is no possibility of enmity again; it is already finished, it is already over.

Gautam Buddha used to say that anything sweet in the beginning turns out to be bitter in the end, and anything bitter in the beginning turns out to be sweet in the end -- and I feel he is right as far as human relationship is concerned.

Q:* I REALLY NEARLY NEVER SAW SUCH A PEACEFUL PLACE THAN RAJNEESHPURAM AND I CAN'T EXPLAIN IT MYSELF, WHY MOST OF THE JOURNALISTS WHO COME HERE AND WRITE VERY HATING AND NEGATIVE ABOUT RAJNEESHPURAM AND YOU, ESPECIALLY THE GERMAN-SPEAKING JOURNALISTS.

A:* There are reasons.... The people who come here, come with closed mind -- already full of prejudice, already they have arrived to the conclusion before arriving here -- and with all those glasses on their eyes they see.... Naturally, whatever color glass they are wearing, they see it here. It is their reflection.

Because you have come open, unprejudiced, with no idea for or against, you will see the reality.

There is certainly no other place more peaceful, more loving, more rejoicing. In fact that is also one of the causes of people becoming hostile. Their hostility is basically based on jealousy. They are miserable, they have forgotten how to smile, they have forgotten how to laugh. They are living in utter anguish and suddenly they come across these tremendously ecstatic people -- jealousy arises.

And to hide that jealousy, hostility is the way.

They don't want to believe that they have missed something in their life which others are already enjoying. They don't want to believe that it is a reality. So they spread all kinds of rumors which have no base in the facts. But they are bound to do that.

It is difficult to find open people to come here, because open people don't exist.

Somebody is Christian, somebody is Hindu, somebody is Mohammedan, somebody is communist -- everybody is part of a crowd, everybody is part of a mob psychology. And whatever is happening here goes absolutely against his background, his mind, his tradition, his religion. Naturally, he feels offended.

I have no complaint about these people, just sadness, because if they were open they could have found a way to rejoice life themselves. But rather than finding the way, they create more and more barriers to understanding.

We don't hate anybody. Everybody is welcome. But it is one of the basic things to understand: you can be compassionate to somebody who is suffering, because that gives you the idea that you are not suffering. You can be compassionate to a poor man who is dying, starving, because there is a deep inside consolation that you are not in his place. But you cannot be loving towards someone who is living better than you. He creates inferiority in you. It is your doing, he is not doing anything -- he is just living his life -- but you start feeling inferior. And how to get rid of the inferiority complex? Either you learn to live the way the other man is living -- that needs tremendous courage and guts because you will have to drop so many things you have become attached.

People become attached even to their fetters, if the fetters are made of gold; people become attached to their cages, if they are masterpieces. They don't want anybody else.... Just think of a bird in the cage looking at the sky, other birds on the wing -- how he feels? He has to find some way to condemn those birds, otherwise he is condemned.

He cannot leave the cage, he has not brave enough to destroy it and get rid of it.

And in fact he is infatuated with its beauty -- the beautiful cathedrals, the churches, the beautiful vatican, all that keeps you encaged. The bird on the wing has nothing, but he has the whole sky.

The only way to console yourself, to find some fault with the bird on the wing:

that he is disobedient, that he is rebellious, that he is a criminal, that he is doing something wrong which is not supposed to be done. He should be in a cage, peacefully. And the cage is nothing but a living acceptance of a grave! You have already died.

A bird without wings is dead. A bird whose sky has been taken away from him is dead. So when those dead birds come here and they see my people with their wings open in the sky -- loving, dancing, singing, enjoying, relishing every moment -- suddenly a great inferiority complex arises in them. They have to do something about it and there are only two ways: either become red or become hostile.

And becoming hostile is easier, because it keeps your vested interests, your jobs, your crowd, your respectability intact. Becoming a sannyasin, yes, you will have the whole sky, but you will be losing the safety, the security, the bank balance, the job, perhaps the wife, the parents, the children -- the risk is too much. They decide it is better to hate these people.

Their hate is a protection, but as far as I am concerned, I know: the moment they start hating, they have already fallen in love. Their hate is superficial. It will not last long, that's why I say I influence people and create enemies. Once they are my enemies they are my people. Sooner or later their hate is going to be dropped, because it cannot stand against the truth.

And their hate is going to become a nightmare to them, because deep down they know what they are doing. It is not that they don't know. They would like not to know, but there is no way: they know perfectly well what they are doing. They are rejecting a reality just because they are cowards, because accepting the reality of this place means a tremendous revolution in your life -- in all the values of your life.

Perhaps you are living with your wife and there is no love any more, but you are simply living because it is respectable. You are part of a society which respects monogamy, which respects marriages should last for their whole life. And you have promised this woman also many times that, "We are made for each other," and now you find that, "We are not made for each other" -- nobody is!

So every husband and wife are simply coexisting, it is not relationship -- tolerating, avoiding conflict. They don't open their mouth because the moment they open their mouths, soon there will be argument; it is better to keep silent.

The husband goes on reading the same newspaper again and again, just to avoid the wife, because if he stops reading the wife is there. And it is not a rare case that wives are throwing away the newspapers, the magazines, the books, because they know they are just barriers. They want to talk. The whole day they have been burning hot and by the evening you come and you start reading your newspaper!

Why they are in such anger? Because you both have given to each other great promises, great hopes, and neither you have been able to fulfill them nor she has been able to fulfill them. You had promised the paradise and you have given hell to each other.

If you come here with open mind, and you see that to live with a woman whom you no more love is a crime -- it is sin, it is ugly, inhuman -- it is better to depart with friendship, with gratitude, for all those beautiful moments that you lived together. But now, the breeze that had come into the room, has gone by the other door. There is no point in pretending, but everybody is pretending.

I am simply taking one case about everything. I know doctors who don't want to be doctors -- but what else to do? They have wife, they have children, they have parents.

Q:* WHY NOT?

A:* They are afraid, just to play guitar on the street and become a hippy! They have been raised with all these responsibilities. Their conditioning is that you have some duty towards your parents, some duty towards your children, some duty to your wife. Even if they dare to go, they will feel guilty, they will feel they have betrayed -- the culture, the civilization, the religion, they have betrayed their parents, their children, their wife. They will not feel at ease at all.

In my commune, nobody has any responsibility towards anybody else. He is responsible only for himself. Hence there is no question of any guilt and there is no question of any repentance.

Jesus continuously says to his people, "Repent! Repent!" What kind of religion is this that teaches people to repent? Because they can repent only if you have first created guilt! Repentance is secondary; it cannot exist on its own. First create guilt in them. First tell them that even to look with loving eyes and desiring eyes with anyone's wife is sin. Strange!

If the woman is beautiful, why not look with loving eyes. That should be simply the way, the right way. Why not go and tell the husband of the woman that, "You are fortunate. You have a beautiful wife. I am already thinking of swapping!"

But we are living in a very idiotic society. You can appreciate a painting, you can appreciate music, you can appreciate a flower, but you cannot appreciate a beautiful woman, a beautiful man? If your wife just tells you, "Look at that beautiful man," you will feel hurt.

Q:* IF YOU WOULD BE A JOURNALIST HOW WOULD YOU REACT ON THIS KIND OF ARTICLES?

A:* I will enjoy! My wife has some ascetic sensibility. And I would tell her that, "If that man is willing, you are free to go with him, because it is your life, and you are not responsible towards me. And I love you, hence I cannot prevent you.

I love you so much that if you are happy with that man, I will be immensely happy." That will be my response. I cannot call it a reaction; it is not reaction.

Reaction is a ugly word.

Q:* WHAT WOULD YOU SAY?

A:* It is my response... and this is my responsibility: I love the woman, but she suddenly feels great love arising in her towards somebody -- what she can do?

Love is not something within her hands. It happens. And if it is happening and she has to repress it, she will take revenge with me. That's why every wife is taking revenge, every husband is taking revenge. Instead of love flowing between them, only revenge, because everybody sees in the other the prison, "Because of her...."

I don't think you can find a single husband who has not thought of killing his wife... at least once. Exact number is at least four times. And it is natural, because she is the barrier and a beautiful woman is standing just within your reach.

All these are the problems. When people come here they are burdened with thousands of things. If they appreciate this place, these people, then what they are going to think about themselves? They are impotent, they are coward; they don't know how to live, they don't know how to love, they don't know how to enjoy freedom. They don't know how to allow others to enjoy freedom. They know nothing! And it is difficult to accept, it is against the ego to accept that, "I don't know anything of the art of living." And that is my whole religion: the art of living.

There is no God in my religion, there is no hell and heaven in my religion; there is only simply an art.

Q:* YOU SAY THAT YOU ARE AGAINST ALL ISMS, BUT YOU CALL YOUR RELIGION RAJNEESHISM -- HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THIS?

A:* I don't call it. This is one of the problems. It is others who started calling it -- and I can understand their difficulty: they have to label it something. And it is not only in this case. For example, Germans don't call their country Germany; it is others. Germans have their own name for their country, but nobody bothers about their name.

India has its own name, but nobody knows about it outside India. They have never called it India; it was others who started calling it India -- for a very strange reason: because when Alexander the Great, who was the first invader, reached the boundaries of India, on the boundary there is an immensely beautiful big river which is called Sindh.

The Greeks could not call it Sindh; they called it Indh. And from their Indh the country became India. No Indian has ever called it India. No scripture of India ever mentions it as India. It was Alexander and his armies who carried the name Indh, India, Indian, and that became the name to the whole world. That's what is happening to us -- we don't have any ism -- but people had to label something.

But it is just like a name: you are born without a name, people give you a name -- without name it will be really going to be difficult for them -- how to address you?

It is the others who started calling it an ism. I am against all ism, including Rajneeshism. The very idea of ism is ugly. It means you have come to a conclusion, to the full point -- now there is going to be no growth. Every ism is a dead thing -- and I am still alive. Please wait at least for me to die, then you can call it ism, but while I am alive.... And every day I am contradicting myself knowingly, for the simple reason that with so many contradictions, nobody will be able to create an ism even when I am gone.

Q:* IS THERE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A RAJNEESHEE AND A SANNYASIN OR WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

A:* There is. Rajneeshee is the name given by others to my people. Sannyas is my peoples' decision to be with me, to allow me, reach their hearts, to be open to me, to remain available to me.

Sannyas simply means your decision, that you would like to be in as intimate contact with me as possible. It is a totally individual decision and all my sannyasins are related to me directly, individually. They are all together because they all love me, otherwise there is no ism that is binding them together. Their love is the only thing that is binding them together: because they love me, naturally they have started loving each other.

Sannyas is a totally different thing. It is not an ism. It is a love affair. Yes, exactly a love affair.

Q:* THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO DON'T GET SANNYAS -- WHICH PEOPLE ARE THIS OR HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THE PHENOMENON THAT SOME PEOPLE DON'T GET SANNYAS?

A:* It is up to them! There can be thousand and one reasons and for every individual it will be different. There are people who would like to become sannyasins -- for example, you! I can see it, that you would like to become a sannyasin, but there may be thousand and one things hindering, to be or not to be.... But trust me: I am going to get you! You cannot escape.

I know my people. I recognize them immediately. There are many people who would like to become sannyasins but they have problems -- and I can understand. For example, many Mohammedans from the Middle East have come to me -- they want to become sannyasins, but they will be killed. Mohammedans are absolutely idiotic. They know only one argument -- that is the sword:

whoever is killed was wrong. They have not yet come to that cultured, sophisticated state where you can argue, discuss, come to a conclusion -- no.

Might is right.

So the people from the Middle East want to become sannyasins, they have come with tears in their eyes, but they say, "Then we cannot go back to our country, to our family. We will be immediately killed!"

There are Russians who want to become sannyasins. There are other communist countries where people want to become sannyasins, but problems. Now in Russia they have found that I have few groups and now they are persecuting them... for no reason at all. Because they are not creating any problem, any harm, anything, but KGB is calling them, interrogating them, harassing them, threatening them, and now just few days before, they have published an article against me which is absolutely fiction. It has nothing to do with me. Not a single thing is right in it.

And they have declared twenty names in it who are suspected to be my people.

Now those twenty people will be in difficulty, in everywhere -- in the restaurant, in the village, in the job, with their wives, with their parents, with the communist party, everywhere -- those twenty people now will be in difficulty.

But for sixty years after the revolution, in Russia, the young man has lost something tremendously valuable which is intrinsic part of being young, and that is the dream of a revolution, the dream of a change, the dream of a utopia -- they are not allowed to have any dreams of this kind. The revolution has happened and now there is going to be no revolution. But young people will always need something -- that is part of their romantic youth.

So they have found me! They are smuggling literature, they are typing my books, spreading those books, cyclostyled books, handwritten books, typed books, are moving hand to hand underground, they meet in basements, and they are more excited than anybody else. They had been asking me, "Can we use red clothes?

Can we wear mala?" I am telling them not to do such things, because,"You will be in trouble and I don't want anybody to be in trouble -- you are my sannyasins without the mala, without red clothes."

Strange enough: red has been the monopoly of the communist; it is now my monopoly. They have already lost a great monopoly. They have only a flag. I have all my people red! Everybody is a flag.

There are problems with people. One old man comes here, for the whole year he has been coming -- he is a billionaire. Now that is his problem, because his family.... He's old, almost seventy, but he is the head of the family, head of all the corporations, head who controls the whole money; now the family is worried that he is coming here too much. Every month for one week he is here.

He wanted to become a sannyasin. The family went to some deprogrammer, but the deprogrammer said that, "He is not a young kid that you can deprogram -- he is seventy year old -- and if you try or force him to bring here, you will be really forcing him into sannyas. He has not taken sannyas yet -- just keep quiet. Be more loving to him, be more respectful to him, and don't disturb him.

Q:* IS HE AN AMERICAN?

A:* He is an American. And he is still coming and he will become a sannyasin.

He had asked me twice, I said, "Wait." Because I don't want to disturb that old man with the family and everything.

I have been preventing him that, "You will be unnecessarily troubled. Right now you go on coming, meditate, but remain underground." I have many underground sannyasins around the world, because there are countries where they have thrown my sannyasins out of job, universities have thrown professors out of job because they became sannyasins. Strange!

They are fighting cases in the courts, because you can be a Christian and nobody throws you out. Because Christianity has power, majority, and the politicians are in the hands of the majority, they cannot do anything against Christianity, they themselves are Christians. And now suddenly a person appears intelligent, well- educated, a professor and he has never been found to do anything wrong, but just becoming a sannyasin.... He will be still teaching the same things, he will be still doing the same work -- what has gone wrong?

Now, I don't want anybody to be unnecessarily a martyr. I don't want anybody to be unnecessarily into torture. I will suggest that drop the red clothes, keep the mala in home, and join the service. You are no more a sannyasin -- tell them.

That does not matter. What matters is your love towards me -- nobody can take it. What matters is your meditation -- nobody can take it, nobody can even know about it.

The essential is such that it is invisible. These are non-essential things which I have created just to shock the crowd, just to make my sannyasins have a certain identity, so they can create more enemies, more hostility, because that is my way of working -- that's how I have got one million sannyasins around the world, without going anywhere -- I simply sit in my room.

Buddha traveled for forty-two years continuously, still he had not that many people as I have without moving out of my room. And I will not move out of my room, and I am going to have many more millions sannyasins. And now I have opened a new area: underground sannyasins. Those who want to be, are willing to sacrifice, but I am against any sacrifice. Why you should sacrifice? You can have it without any sacrifice. It is something inner. You can go on pretending to be a Christian, and even if you have to go every Sunday to the church, go and have a good morning nap -- there is no problem in it. I am not a fanatic, about anything.

So people come... if they stay here a little, then they are bound to fall in love with my people. If they just come and have a look and run away, then they will carry hostility, all kinds of jealousies, and they will be feeling inferior and they will take revenge.

You ask me particularly, "Why the Germans are so hostile?" Because Germans have suffered two world wars, particularly the second world war, in the hands of a very charismatic, but a crackpot, Adolf Hitler. The Germans are worried because German youth is getting too much attracted to me, the same way as German youth was attracted to Adolf Hitler. They don't know that I am just the opposite kind of person.

Q:* FOR EXAMPLE, THE SWISS HASN'T ANY WAR SINCE ONE HUNDRED YEARS.

A:* I know it. That's why there are not many Swiss sannyasins. They are living comfortably well.

Q:* THEY DON'T NEED IT.

A:* They need it but they don't know it. They are comfortable and it is difficult to drop comforts.

Q:* WHY SHOULD THEY?

A:* They will have to drop comforts if they want to have luxuries. I am against poverty, but I am against just... just mere comforts. I am for luxury! I am always for the best.

Q:* YOU HAVE SAID THAT YOU ARE THE GURU OF THE RICH PEOPLE, SO SWITZERLAND IS ONE OF THE RICHEST COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD -- ARE YOU THE GURU OF THE SWISS PEOPLE?

A:* Soon, I will be. You just start it! It is not going to be long. Only the rich can understand me, because only the rich need me. They have seen everything in life and it is not fulfilling them, it is not that they were looking for. They have everything and yet there is tremendous discontent inside.

The poor man is hungry. He needs bread, he needs clothes, he needs a shelter. To talk about meditation to a poor man is simply inhuman. I will not do that. That is not his need. It is as if he is hungry and you tell him, "Listen to the Mozart, look at the paintings of van Gogh" -- that will be very inhuman. And meditation is far higher than any Mozart or any van Gogh: it is the ultimate in luxury. Because only in meditation you will find what you have been looking for many lives.

The rich man is capable to understand me and is in need of me. Just he has to come know about me. So make an effort that the rich people in Switzerland become aware of me, that I can give them what they cannot purchase. I can give them which no money can ever purchase.

Q:* DO YOU HAVE ANY SPECIAL RAJNEESH PROJECTS FOR SWITZERLAND ALREADY?

A:* No. But I have my commune there. They are working well, perfectly well.

And soon they will be spreading. It takes a little time and the thing is very delicate. But I am the top of the whole world: nobody can escape me. He will have to decide, either for me or against me -- he cannot ignore me. And either way I am happy -- decide for or against -- I have taken possession of you.

So my people are there, they have a beautiful commune in Zurich, and I can come there any day.

Q:* IN THE DISCOURSE YOU SPOKE ABOUT WOMEN'S MENSTRUATION, AND YOU HAVE OFTEN SAID THAT YOU ARE FOR NATURE AND FOR NATURAL THINGS AT MAN. I WAS SURPRISED THAT YOU WERE TELLING THAT THE MENSTRUATION SHOULD GET PREVENTED BY MEDICALS.

A:* I have always spoken for nature. That does not mean that we cannot go beyond nature. We should not go against nature, but we can go beyond nature, otherwise what is your intelligence for? Nature has given you intelligence. The simple reason is that you have been made capable to go beyond, and up to now you have used your intelligence going against.

I would like man to improve upon nature. There are many things which can be improved. And nature has given you intelligence, so it is nature itself improving; you are part of nature. For example, this monthly blues of women is simply something very crude and primitive. Nature can be improved upon and we will not be going against nature.

If we can make all the women of the world free from this torture, that they have to go for seven days, six days, some for ten days, I don't think we are doing anything against nature. We are helping the woman to become more healthy, more loving, less nagging. We are not only helping the woman, we are also helping the man, because those ten days of the woman, she is continuously a nuisance. She is suffering, she is in pain, she is almost in a kind of temporary insanity. She will do everything that after the period is over, she will repent. She will say "It is the period, that I was throwing plates and breaking things, unnecessarily." I don't think....

So the distinction has to be remembered: I am against anybody going against nature, but if you are going beyond, I am all for you. And intelligence is really part of nature. Nature itself wants through intelligence, to transcend -- all mistakes, all errors. Intelligence is part of nature, otherwise nature is blind.

Intelligence is nature's eyes.

So everything, for example, if a plastic heart gives you better health, longer life, no possibility of heart attack, I will support the plastic heart. And I will not say this is going against nature, because whatever nature could do, you are doing it in a better way. And you are part of nature, so it is nature itself improving upon itself.

So I am for everything. I am not a fanatic person who believes "back to nature;"then you will be on the trees!

Q:* WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT HOMEOPATHIC?

A:* Nonsense! German nonsense.

Q:* WHY?

A:* Because it was born in Germany.

Q:* WHY A NONSENSE?

A:* Because it is just sugar pills and nothing else in it. But it can help idiots who are suffering from diseases which do not exist, which are just their creations -- it can help. So I am not saying stop it, but the better way will be that people should be made more intelligent that they don't suffer from hallucinatory sicknesses.

There are many pathies, not only homeopathy. There is naturopathy, there is ayurveda in India, there is acupuncture in China and there are many others in every country. And only allopathy is scientific; all others are just belief systems.

If you believe in naturopathy, it can be of great help, at least in eighty percent diseases, because those diseases don't exist. They are just in your mind. So anything....

In India people will go to the so-called saints and just wash their feet and drink the water... and they are healed -- no homeopathy, no naturopathy, no allopathy, nothing is needed. Just washing the feet of the saint and drinking that water and they are healed. They were never sick in the first place. That's why allopathy could not help them.

Allopathy can only help if the sickness is real. If the sickness is unreal, then allopathy is dangerous, because you are giving medicines for a sickness which does not exist. Your medicines will have their own after-effects, because all medicines have poisons of all kinds. They are meant to kill certain virus, certain causes of sickness. But if the sickness is only in the mind, just an idea, then allopathy is dangerous. The person should go to homeopathy. Then other pathies -- naturopathy....

But if we can raise human consciousness, just a little bit, eighty percent diseases will simply disappear and with eighty percent diseases disappearing, homeopathy, naturopathy, ayurveda, acupuncture, all nonsense will disappear.

There is going to be only one science of medicine. And for twenty percent diseases which are actual, it is enough.

The difference is exactly like other religions and my religion: all those religions are homeopathy, my religion is allopathy; all those religions are superstition, my religion is science. Those superstitions have exploited man for thousands of years. They create the disease then they give the medicine to you. Naturally it is cured. They create guilt then they give you prayer; they create guilt then they say, "Confess to the priest"; they give you guilt then they say, "Trust in God, he is compassionate, forgiving" -- a very cunning game!

My people are guilt-free, hence nobody needs any prayer, nobody needs any holy Bible, nobody needs any God. Even if God comes to Rajneeshpuram, the people who are dancing in disco will not come out to see him! Who cares about God?

If you are guilty, if you feel you are a sinner, if you feel that on the judgment day God will be the person to decide where to send you -- to hell or to heaven -- then naturally if somebody appears on the streets and declares, "I am God," few people are going to believe in him. Those will be the people who are suffering from fictitious ideas. The God will be a tremendous consolation to them. That's how your messiahs, your saviors, your prophets have been doing. The whole business of religion is dependent on lies, absolute lies.

The search for truth is a totally different thing. It is not out of guilt, it is not out of the sense that you are born in sin; it is born out of your intelligence. Naturally an intelligent person wants to know, "Why I am here? Why this existence is here?

What is the meaning of it? What is the source of it and where we are going?" Any intelligent person is bound to be curious, with so many significant questions, then there is a totally different religion.

Q:* IF I HEAR YOU SPEAKING I THINK THAT HUMANITY DEVELOPED IN THE WRONG DIRECTION FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS.

A:* That's true.

Q:* WHY?

A:* It developed in wrong direction because the cunning people could exploit it only if it developed into wrong direction. And there are cunning people around - - politicians, priests -- these are the real criminals. Not the people who are in prisons -- they are poor people, they have done trivia, some small thing. The real criminals are your politicians and your priests, because their whole existence depends on man not knowing the truth. The man should be diverted into directions where he finds nothing. That's why humanity has gone into wrong directions... and is still going!

Q:* IS IT NATURAL THAT IT'S GOING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION?

A:* No. It is not natural. It is because of the criminal mind of few people who have dominated -- and the criminal mind always wants to dominate. If it fails then it is to suffer the indignity of imprisonment, if it succeeds it becomes a president of a country or a prime minister or a pope, but all these people are criminals.

And simple humanity, innocent humanity, is available to these criminals and nobody is standing against them. That's why they are all against me! They may be against each other -- this is a very strange situation: they are all against each other, but as far as I am concerned they are all together against me, because for the first time I am trying to cut their business from the very roots.

My effort is that man should be freed from guilt and sin, and immediately you will see such a flare-up of intelligence around the world, which has been repressed for thousands of years. Suddenly you will see new faces: fresh, without any mask, young. Once they drop out of the direction that has been forced on them and start living simply, naturally, silently, on their own intrinsic insight -- not depending on Jesus Christ or Moses or Buddha or Mohammed, just taking the whole responsibility on themselves -- you will see a beautiful world arising.

And it is not far away; it is going to happen, because people are really fed up, tired. They have been exploited too much. Just they need the alternative, which we are trying to create.

All these communes around the world, finally are to become the alternative. This is our answer to the society which is suffering unnecessarily, is miserable unnecessarily, is poor unnecessarily -- and I don't want just to talk about it, because that will not help. I want existential proof of what I am saying. And my people are going to become the existential proof: they don't have any God, they don't fear any hell, they are not greedy for any paradise. They are creating paradise here, now. And anybody can come and see and experience.

We are going to take over the world. It is a wildfire that I am creating which no fire brigade can stop. Just it takes time -- it is a big world....

Q:* SO MAYBE SOMETIMES THERE WILL BE NINETY PERCENT OF THE POPULATION OF THE WORLD SANNYASINS, AND THE OTHER TEN PERCENT NON-SANNYASINS -- WHAT WOULD YOU DO THEN?

A:* No problem. Let those ten percent suffer. They are already punishing themselves. No more punishment is needed for them. If ninety percent people are rejoicing and ten percent are mourning in the church because Jesus says, "Blessed are those who mourn, because they will be comforted," so let them mourn. We don't want anybody to comfort us; we are already immensely fulfilled. We don't need anybody to comfort us.

So those ten percent are... ANY percent of people -- those who do not want to change, who cling to their misery, suffering, anxiety, anguish, and who want not to live, and their hopes are directed beyond death -- it is up to them. They are free to suffer, they are free to torture, and that's what they have been doing for centuries. What your saints have been doing? -- torturing themselves. And the more they torture, the more they are respected. The more they are respected, the more they torture, because their ego is fulfilled. Just a vicious circle! They fast and people respect them, they start fasting more -- people respect them more, they become great saints.

There have been strange kinds of religious sects. One Christian sect believed in flagging themselves every morning -- the more you flag yourself, lash yourself, and blood flows from your body, and greater a Christian you are. And their saints, of course, were more torturing themselves than their followers.

In Russia there was a Christian sect which used to cut their genitals, and they were respected tremendously. Women were in a difficulty, because the man was becoming saints -- they were cutting their genitals -- but the woman...? Finally they found a way; they started cutting their breasts. Every year there was a day in that sect when people will get into a frenzy and will start cutting their genitals, their breasts, and those who did it, became saints -- nothing else to do.

In India there have been all kinds of masochists, respected as great saints. And of course, those who follow them, have to do something on the same lines.

I teach my people to rejoice, not to live in any torture. Suffering is not a quality, a value. Creativity is a value: you create something -- that will make you a great musician, a great dancer, a great poet. These will be my saints, because they have contributed to the happiness of man, to his pleasures, to his comforts. They have made the world better, they have improved upon nature. These should be called the saints and they should have all respect, honor -- not these idiots who are cutting their genitals or... hitting themselves with....

Strange kinds of instruments were developed in the middle ages by Christianity; certain kind of shoes in which there were nails -- you put your feet and those nails go into your feet, and you have to walk on those shoes, blood oozing -- and those nails make permanent wounds, because the saint has to use them every day. They made belts with nails going inside your skin, and you are not supposed even to take those belts off when you go to sleep.

In India there are still people -- if you go to Varanasi -- you will find people lying down on a bed of nails, specially made. Their whole body is in immense torture, but thousands of people are worshipping them. You will find people who are not sitting, not sleeping, but just standing -- for years -- that is only their great achievement.

They have to stand with a certain support so from the ceiling ropes are hanging, a rod is fixed in the ropes and they are putting their hands on the rod. Slowly, slowly their blood goes on and on filling their legs, their head and their upper body shrinks and their legs become elephant legs. They are really creating elephantiasis*, a certain kind of disease, but they are known as saints. And you will not see any intelligence in their eyes -- from where intelligence will come?

Their blood is not reaching to their head any more; you need sometimes to sleep so that blood can reach to your head, clean it, take the old cells, bring new cells.

But those people are standing for twelve years or twenty years. Their dead cells have not been removed by the blood. In fact the whole bloods -- just because of gravitation -- has moved into their legs. Even now if they want to sit, they cannot; their body has lost the elasticity. They cannot bend their legs. Their knees have disappeared long away, but they have the respect of thousands of people.

And I have been asking people that if somebody suffers from elephantiasis*, do you think him, he is a saint? These people are creating the disease themselves; they are idiots! What is their contribution? -- to humanity, to the world. They have not given a single poetry, a single painting, a single song. All that they have done is this stupid thing, and now they have followers who are practicing to stand just the way the great master is doing. They have lost all intelligence, they cannot even speak.... But this is what has been done in the past.

I am not unnecessarily against it. Every intelligent person in the world should be against it, and we should create an atmosphere in which man is freed from all these mad ideas -- and that's what my work is: a sannyasin is one who is freed from all insane ideas, who has dropped the cage and opened his wings into the sky, and now he knows the beauty of being free, he knows the tremendous joy of moving towards the far away stars -- the immensity of the universe is all his!

And every sannyasin has to contribute. Nobody should leave this world the same as he has found it. Something he should contribute -- that is my religion.

He should improve something. He should make more songs, more music, more dances. He should make more beautiful flowers. Nature has to be improved!

You can crossbreed plants, you can create new flowers which have never existed.

It is not against nature. It is simply that you were not intelligent enough to use the potential of nature, when nature was always ready to crossbreed. You can crossbreed fruits and you can have new fruits, with new taste, which no human being ever tasted before -- you will be the first to taste it. And you can manage the taste the way you want: an apple having also a little taste of lemon in it will be more juicier. Or you can make it more sweet....

And the same has to be done with animals, and the same has to be done with man -- I am all for human engineering. Up to now man has been just an accident.

We have to improve upon it. Because of this accident thing, there are so many idiots in the world which could have been prevented, and there could have been in their place so many geniuses. And it is not against nature; it is simply using your intelligence and the potential of nature....

In a single intercourse a man is releasing millions of living cells. Out of those million people, there may be an Albert Einstein, there may be a Shakespeare, there may be a Milton, there may be a Dante... and there are going to be thousands of idiots, mediocre people. And it is just left to accident: who reaches first to the female egg. And as far as I know, geniuses are always lazy!

I myself wonder, always, how I managed to reach the egg first? -- with so many idiots in the race.... Just accident.

Up to now we have lived with accidental humanity; now we can live with a planned humanity. So if we need one thousand Albert Einstein, we can produce one thousand Albert Einstein. If we need more doctors, then there is no need for forcing people to be doctor, because a forced man....

For example, I myself: my parents wanted to me either to become a doctor or an engineer or a scientist and I simply refused. I said, "I am going to study philosophy." They said, "You are mad! Philosophy pays nothing. You will not even get service." I said, "I don't bother about service. I can beg, but I am going to study philosophy."

My whole family was against it, and they all said, "Then you can go, but we will not be giving you any financial support."I said, "That is decided -- there is no problem in it. I am going against you -- this is expected that you should not give me any economic support. But remember, even if you want some day to give me the support, I will not take it."

For two years I had to work in the night in a newspaper as an editor and in the day to attend the university. Slowly, slowly, my family started feeling guilty that they are destroying my health, I am working whole night, then in the day I am going to the university, and here and there I find time to sleep.

My father came to me with tears in his eyes; he said, "Forgive us, but please accept... stop what you are doing and drop this service. We will be sending you enough money." But I said, "It was decided: I will not take it, because I have not followed your idea. Why you should be unnecessarily burdened financially to help somebody who has disobeyed you, always disobeyed you. No, it is perfectly well. I have no grudge, no complaint against you. I have done it knowingly. Even before you had said, I knew that that will be the last pressure... but I didn't want to see you crying."

But he will not leave. He said, "I will not go from the hostel, till you receive." I finally had to receive but I told him, "I am taking this money only because of your tears. I don't want anybody to be miserable, otherwise I don't deserve it. I am accepting it because you will never be able to forgive yourself and I don't want anybody to feel guilty on my account."

There is no need to force anybody to become a doctor or an engineer or a scientist. We can produce exactly what we want. Whole life is a mess. The person who needed to become a plumber has become a professor. The person who needed to be a professor is just a plumber -- strange world! Both are unhappy, both are inadequate in their work, both can never be total in their work. None of them is going to reach to the height of his creativity and potentiality. They are in wrong places.

We can improve upon nature. We should improve upon nature. And it is not against nature. Nature is already giving one million living beings to you, now it is up to you who wins the race. Help the right person, because the right person may be lazy. The right person may not run so fast. The right person may not care at all. Poets, painters, dancers, scientists, philosophers, mystics, perhaps may stand by the side and let the crowd go by. These type of people don't like crowds!

We have to remove the crowd from the traffic jam and bring those people who are standing by the side of the road. And we know now that the cell has everything.

It can be read, that what it is going to be, what are its potentialities, how long will be its life, what kind of diseases the person will suffer, what kind of color the person will have. Because the living cell has everything built in, and we can change it. That too is now possible. Why unnecessarily this man should suffer diseases when we can remove from the plan from the very beginning?

We can reprogram the person. We can take out all the possibilities of sicknesses.

We can take out old age. We can let the person live a long healthy and young life.

Old age can simply disappear from the world. Sicknesses can be prevented from the very beginning. Rather than fighting whole life with your sicknesses and thousands of hospitals and millions of doctors and nurses -- sheer wastage! All this could have been prevented.

Even whether the person is going to be a criminal, or not, can be read. The whole map of his life is available. We can take out his criminal element, his political element, his effort to become a priest or a pope -- we can take all these stupid things.

And we can give him a new program, that how you can live more joyously, how you can relish small things of life. A cup of tea -- you can enjoy it as if this is the ultimate bliss. I call it going beyond nature and I call it, it is nature's own project - - it is not against nature.

Intelligence is the proof -- that nature has given you intelligence, now use it!

Okay?

Get ready for sannyas!